


Sourwolf!

by thMaddHatter



Series: Teen Wolf Things I'll Never Write [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Architect Derek, Gen, Grieving, M/M, Mute Stiles, Post-Allison's Death, Post-Season/Series 03, Pre Sterek, Pre-Slash, for some of it, he talks eventually, ignores seasons 4 and 5, never will be, not finished, nothing really happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-02
Updated: 2015-10-02
Packaged: 2018-04-24 12:02:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4918801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thMaddHatter/pseuds/thMaddHatter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post 3b. Ignores everything afterward.</p><p>After all the death and destruction caused by the nogitsune, Stiles decides it's time he goes around on an apology train. Derek is his first stop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sourwolf!

**Author's Note:**

> Like the other stories in this series, this is just a random scene from a fic I created but will never finish.
> 
> I had honestly forgotten that I'd written this and had been thinking of it as something I'd read in another fic but couldn't remember the name of. Then I ran across it as I was going through old files. I do not remember what the rest of the story was about, but I couldn't just forget about this scene. I liked it too much. In fact, I had put a similar scene in another fic I'll probably never write that takes place between seasons 2 and 3. I had felt guilty cause I felt like I was copying off someone, but there was no other way I wanted it to go. But apparently I was copying off myself, so I don't have to worry about it lol.

Stiles bunched his quivering hands into fists and puffed out his chest. Maybe if he pretended he was confident about this long enough then he actually would be later.

He let out his breath in a quiet hiss, deflating his chest and unclenching his fingers.

Yeah, that’s probably not going to work.

He lifted his arm to knock on the door anyways but before he could make contact, Derek called for him to come in from the other side. As Stiles slid open the door he tried not to think too hard about the fact that if Derek knew he was there already, then he must have known he’d spent the past 10 minutes or so hovering outside the door in a jumbled mess of energy and nerves.

Stiles had spent all morning thinking of scenarios of how this would play out.

He’d thought of every possibility from Derek not even letting him through the door to Derek grabbing him by the collar and tossing him across the room for disturbing him in the middle of the day. He’d been prepared for if Derek had been sitting on his bed reading. He knew what he’d do if he caught Derek in the middle of working out. Even planned how he would not look at his toned shoulders, bulging biceps, or rippling abs so he wouldn’t lose his resolve. And just in case, Stiles had even prepared himself for if he’d interrupted Derek in the middle of sexy times with some girl. Stiles had thought up every possibility and came up with a contingency plan for all of them.

He knew he needed to be prepared for anything otherwise he wouldn’t follow through and would have wasted the trip over there. So nothing should have surprised him.

But the further Stiles stepped into the loft the more completely taken aback he was by what he saw.

It was quite majestic really. He found himself staring, eyes wide and open mouthed.

It took him stumbling down the set of 4 steps into the loft and very nearly face-planting right in the entryway for him to tear his eyes away. With the proper combination of flailing and feet shuffling–something that could only be accomplished with years of experience at being uncoordinated–he managed to just barely avoid hitting the floor.

Somewhat flustered, Stiles stood upright again only to realize the flush growing in his ears was wasted because Derek hadn’t even bothered to look up at him. He was sitting at the workbench beneath the oversized windows focusing very hard on the work at hand.

The sight in and of itself wasn’t particularly unusual, Derek could often be found in a similar position. What was slightly more astonishing however, was what exactly the work at hand had been.

Derek was sitting in a pair of loose fitting plaid pajama bottoms with an Under Armour band barely peeking out above it. His gray tank top was lit up yellow on the chest from the light that was sitting near his face.

If Stiles looked closely he could see that Derek’s eyes looked a little crossed as he focused on a magnifying glass that was attached to the arm of the lamp. He had both hands behind the glass, using a pair of tweezers and modeling glue to attach what Stiles could only assume was a tiny chair into the miniature courtyard behind a scarily realistic model of a skyscraper.

Derek was completely zoned in on what he was doing, ignoring Stiles entirely despite the fact that he had been the one to invite him in.

Stiles didn’t know exactly what to do with himself.

Derek looked so calm and at peace that Stiles didn’t want to move again out of fear he would break the Zen-like hold he was under. So he just stood there, observing but not speaking.

Stiles couldn’t think of a time when he saw Derek not completely put together (times when he was injured or having just finished a fight not included). He wasn’t entirely sure why he found it so endearing. It completely humanized Derek to see him sitting around in his pajamas working away on something he seemed to enjoy.

A Grumpy Cat style frown and leather jackets had become so synonymous with Derek Hale that Stiles almost couldn’t believe who he was looking at.

He tilted his head slightly as he continued to watch, mesmerized by the whole scene. He studied Derek’s face a little more closely and noticed that his usual scruff had been allowed to grow out long enough that he just might be able to call it a beard without lying.

He tried not to focus too hard on Derek’s bunny teeth barely poking out between his slightly parted lips, or on the lips themselves, soft and pink, the bottom one ever so slightly fuller than the top. Nope. Not focusing on them at all.

He flicked his eyes up imperceptibly and noticed the disheveled hair on Derek’s head. He hadn’t gelled it up like usual and it was also slightly longer than Stiles remembers ever having seen it.

The thought reminded him of how long it had been since he’d actually seen Derek, which in return reminded him of why he was there in the first place.

“So,” Stiles jumped as Derek’s voice cut through the silence. “Did you need something, or were you just going to keep watching me?” he asked, still not bothering to look up.

Stiles crooked his neck a little as he honestly considered the rhetorical question, before opening his mouth to start on with his little speech he prepared. But when he tried to speak, no words came out.

He changed his stance and pressed his fists down by his sides, trying to force the words out. Still nothing. So much for not losing his resolve.

He tried to find it one last time by attempting to catch Derek’s eye. But Derek still wouldn’t look up at him, entire focus placed on his model skyscraper. Conceding to his defeat, Stiles sighed heavily through his nose then went to sit on the couch, clasping his hands over his knees primly.

For a moment, Stiles thought he heard Derek chuckling very quietly under his breath, but when he snapped his head over in his direction, Derek was tight-lipped and still focused on his skyscraper. He leaned back into the couch and released his hands, pulling his feet onto the cushions and getting cozy.

“Shoes off the couch.”

Derek hadn’t said it meanly, so when Stiles felt the urge to say something snarky back and rub his shoes in, he repressed it and simply threw Derek a glare before taking his shoes off and placing them on the floor.

After that, they were able to sit in a comfortable silence for a while.

To Stiles’ surprise (and probably Derek’s as well), he was able to sit there quietly observing the room and letting his mind wander without growing bored or tired. Even more surprising was that he was relatively still, no leg tapping or fidgeting whatsoever.

He attributed that to the giant cup of coffee he drank on his way to the loft. Because of his ADD, caffeine had quite the opposite effect on him than it did for others. It settled his nerves and even helped him focus a bit instead of making him jittery.

After a while, Derek’s voice cut through the silence again. “Well, if you’re just going to sit there, you can at least make yourself useful and make me some tea.” Stiles jerked his head toward Derek, sarcastic remark about slavery on the tip of his tongue, but Derek had finally looked up at him and when hazel eyes met whisky brown his heart rate shot up and he was forced to swallow the comment.

Flustered again and not knowing what else to do, he simply stood up and headed in the direction of the kitchen.

He walked across the loft and through the literal hole in the wall to the kitchen. When he flipped on the light and looked at his surroundings, he was suddenly struck with the realization that he’d never actually been in there before despite the numerous times he’d been to Derek’s loft.

He spotted the kettle on the stove and quickly washed and filled it, leaving the water to boil while he began exploring the kitchen.

He pretended he was just looking for the tea, but once he’d gotten every cabinet and drawer open and sifted through all of their contents he gave up any notions of tea and conceded to himself that he was just being nosy.

Finally, he opened the fridge and freezer taking inventory of the food supply. He was rather surprised at the amount of red meat packed into it, although he supposed he shouldn’t have been.

Derek was freaking ripped, he had to get that protein from somewhere. Being a werewolf may have had something to do with it as well.

Looking at all that red meat, he could just feel his dad’s blood pressure going up despite the fact that he would never see any of it.

He could only imagine how it affected his father, never himself. He still had his teenage metabolism and could eat whatever crap he wanted without remorse. That was his story and he was sticking to it.

He noticed a disturbing lack of anything green in the fridge and made a mental note that he needed to cook Derek dinner some time. Something colorful that included all 5 food groups while still being meaty enough to please a wild animal. Perhaps a good lasagna would fit the bill.

Stiles closed the fridge doors while musing about the food he was going to make Derek. He definitely wasn’t thinking of how romantic it would be to pair the lasagna with a glass of Chianti and a few candles on the table. Nope. He certainly wasn’t thinking about feeding Derek his lasagna, and watching those bunny teeth scrape gently across the fork before wrapping those pink lips of his around it and taking the food into his mouth. No, he definitely wasn’t thinking about that at all.

The whistling tea kettle jerked Stiles out of his reverie so hard that he shot up and smacked his head on one of the dangling pots over the island in the middle of the kitchen. He hit it hard, causing the entire rack to sway and all the pots to clang and smack into each other. The force of it sent him off balance and crashing into a column of open drawers, slamming all of them shut at the same time before he collapsed to the ground noisily.

“It would be really nice if you didn’t break anything,” Derek’s extremely exasperated voice drifted through the walkway. Stiles tried to respond by telling him he was working on it, but what came out was more of a low whimper.

After a few moments, the whistling kettle was cut off followed by the sound of a few more cabinets and drawers closing. Minutes later, Stiles walked back into the main room of the loft carrying a mug of sugarless tea and a bag of frozen corn on his head.

For the briefest of seconds, he thought he saw Derek smirking at him. He handed him the tea a little more gruffly than necessary, frowning when he took a sip and didn’t appear bothered by how bitter it was. Of course he drinks his tea without sugar. Needing sugar in it implied he had a soul.

Stiles winced as he took three big gulps from the cup, unsure what sensation should have been worse, the bitter taste of the tea or the feel of it burning his throat.

Derek grunted out a quiet thank you in an attempt to dismiss Stiles who had admittedly been hovering for a bit. But Stiles merely nodded without leaving.

In fact his look grew quite solemn all of a sudden and he swallowed nervously, bracing his fists by his sides in preparation to get some words out.

Sensing what they were, as soon as Stiles opened his mouth to speak Derek clapped his fingers over the boy’s mouth. “Stop.”

Stiles snapped his lips shut behind his hand, and he had to pretend not to notice how close the movement felt to a gentle kiss.

Derek lowered his hand and fixed Stiles with an intense stare. “Don’t apologize. Don’t you _dare_ apologize for what the nogitsune did. Don’t tell me you’re sorry for being possessed, either.”

Stiles knitted his eyebrows together and opened his mouth as if to protest, but Derek cut him off again.

“No. I don’t blame you. I’m not mad at you because you didn’t do anything.”

Derek could see water beginning to pool in Stiles’ eyes as he started looking sorry for himself. This time he didn’t even bother trying to say what he was thinking, but Derek could tell what it was anyways.

“All you did was to fight your hardest to save the people you care about. There’s nothing to feel sorry for about that. The actions of the nogitsune are no one’s responsibility but his own. And he’s been taken care of already. So stop saying sorry and bring me more tea.”

Derek chugged the last few gulps of tea, not particularly bothered by how hot it was before shoving the cup back at Stiles. Stiles looked back at him incredulously.

“Sourwolf!” he croaked out.

He meant to shout it, but it came out quietly, his voice hoarse and broken from extended disuse.

He snatched the cup out of Derek’s hand and span around toward the kitchen, corn still on his head.

As he made the tea—making certain to add two giant scoops of sugar—he couldn’t help but laugh at himself. It sounded more like a wheeze, and he tried to clear his throat, but that only helped minimally. He counted backwards in his head as he brought the cup back to Derek, smiling to himself when he arrived at his answer.

“What’re you so happy about all of a sudden?” Derek asked eyeing the mug suspiciously. Stiles shook his head and cleared his throat again before trying to speak. It made no major difference.

“After the nogitsune and Allison’s death, I kinda locked myself in my room and wouldn’t talk to anyone.” He swallowed before continuing, “I haven’t spoken in six weeks. I just find it funny that the first thing out of my mouth after complete radio silence is ‘Sourwolf.’” Stiles thought he saw Derek suppress a smirk before raising an eyebrow at him.

“Well,” he muttered over his cup, “I’m just glad you’re talking now. I’m not sure what’s more terrifying: you when you won’t shut up, or you in complete and utter silence.” He blew on his tea gently, and as he did so Stiles could see that his lips and probably the inside of his mouth were red. Apparently he did burn himself on the tea when he chugged it down so fast before.

Not that Stiles was paying any particular attention to his mouth or anything. No sir. Definitely not staring intently as he wrapped his lips around the edge of the mug.

This time Derek took a more human sip then made a pinched face before throwing Stiles a dirty look. He rolled his eyes and wordlessly handed his cup back. Stiles took it back with a dazzling smile, glad that he’d managed to annoy the werewolf.

Derek didn’t know it, but that had been the first time Stiles had grinned like that since before Halloween.

All Derek knew was that he had to force his face into a deep frown to keep from staring at the smile completely awestruck.

Instead of taking the cup back to the kitchen, Stiles headed back to his spot on the couch, sipping on the tea himself.

Derek thought about ordering him to make another one, but now that Stiles was talking again he didn’t think he should press his luck. He just rolled his eyes and turned his focus back to his model skyscraper.

After working for a few more minutes in a comfortable silence, Stiles cleared his throat again to say, “What are you working on over there, anyways?” His voice was noticeably clearer, but still hoarse and just a little too quiet. The tea must have been helping.

“What does it look like?” Derek sighed, seemingly already regretful that Stiles was talking again.

“Obviously it’s a skyscraper. But what are you making it for? I can’t imagine you’re going to take it upstairs to go play Barbie’s.” Derek almost sent him a death glare for the Barbie comment. Almost. But he used his full force of self-control to keep his eyes on what was in front of him and the heat out of his voice. This just resulted in him glaring daggers at a tiny unsuspecting tree through his magnifying glass.

“It’s a scale model of a building I’m pitching to- a corporation in San Francisco on Friday.” Derek had to stop himself before he said the name of the company. The whole deal was supposed to be under wraps, not that he thought Stiles would have particularly cared. But he was ordered not to speak of it, and failing to follow orders was just bad form.

Stiles’ eyebrows practically raised off his forehead as the information hit him. “Pitching it to a- So wait! That’s gonna be a real building? In San Francisco?”

“There are other people who have to agree to the deal first, but that’s the idea.”

“So you’re like a building developer or something?”

“I… am… the architect.” That caught Stiles completely off guard.

“Did… did you just make a Matrix reference?” Derek sighed at the boy.

“Yes, Stiles.” Stiles had to ignore the way his heart fluttered when Derek said his name. Instead he stood up and began walking over to the table.

“I just didn’t know you’d ever seen the Matrix. Let alone either of the sequels.”

“Well, there’s a lot you and your friends don’t know about me.”

Stiles was slightly taken aback by the truth in that statement. It was completely right. If he thought about, he really had no idea who Derek was.

As he approached the table, he began to lean over to look at it. He considered the cup of tea in his hands and thought better of it.

Instead he came a little closer to the table, but kneeled down to look at the model bringing his cup down with him. That way if his clumsiness got the better of him, at least it would only spill on their feet and nothing important. Although Stiles wasn’t sure how he could have stumbled or fallen when standing still. But if anyone were to figure it out, it would have been him.

“Wow,” Stiles whispered, admiring the building. “An architect.”

He had to admit, the building did look rather impressive. It had a unique design that would make it stand out against a backdrop of rectangular buildings, but still looked fully functional. It was shaped like an isosceles triangle, but across the middle of the triangle were two large segments that looked like a C and its mirror image that met back to back. It actually looked pretty awesome and Stiles found himself wondering what it would look like from the inside looking out the windows. “Who’d have thought the Sourwolf’s job was as an architect?”

While Stiles was busy examining the skyscraper, Derek allowed himself to gently smile at the boy and the faces he was making. “Well, I don’t know where you and your friends got the idea that my job was to skulk around high schools threatening teenagers.”

“To be fair…” Stiles trailed off when he saw the look Derek leveled him with.

“I work freelance. Meaning I make my own schedule. So if I find the need to babysit a bunch of newborn werewolves to keep them from killing their classmates, then I just make the time to do it.”

Stiles gave him a wide eyed smirk, silently conveying “whatever you say, buddy,” before turning around carefully and walking back to his spot on the couch. Derek smirked at the back of his head before rolling his eyes and continuing with his model.

With his apology out of the way, Stiles figured he should probably leave Derek alone. Except Stiles really didn’t want to go home, but he didn’t want to continue to the next stop on his apology train either. So he just lingered around in Derek’s loft for a while longer, finding things to do. And by things to do he of course meant going through all of Derek’s closets, drawers, and shelves.

Derek almost started to complain about him leaving his scent everywhere until he realized that he was organizing everything he touched. His messy bookshelf was alphabetized. His wardrobe was color coordinated. Stiles had even gone through and ordered his sock drawer by color than by length. When Stiles made it to his underwear drawer, Derek almost spoke up again, comment about boundaries perched on his lips. However Stiles merely tilted his head at the contents pensively for a moment, then pushed the drawer back shut and moved on to the next.

As he was exploring the loft, every now and then he would throw out a random question at Derek. The first one had been a simple “What’s your favorite color?”

To which Derek responded, “Green. What’s yours?

Stiles answered back “Blue,” while leaned halfway into the wardrobe, trying to organize all the shoes he’d found tossed haphazardly in the bottom. Derek didn’t bother telling him the reason they were in there at all was because he didn’t wear them anymore. “Although it used to be red.”

Derek flicked his eyes over at the boy, spotting his red hoodie, his red socks that had come out of his red shoes, and the thin line of red that was peeking out over his jeans when he leaned too far over and his hoodie and shirt rode up.

 _Used_ to be?

The questions kept coming intermittently. They were mostly simple questions that could be given one word answers. Questioning what his favorite things were. Every now and then he would ask something that required more thought such as what his favorite childhood memory was.

Every question that Stiles asked, Derek would finish his answer by asking Stiles what his would be. He would occasionally throw in a question about werewolves, but there was only a few. The main reason he had asked any at all was to see how Derek would rephrase the question to ask a human.

They continued on this way until Stiles had decided that he’d rearranged everything in the loft and that meant it was time to eat.

When Stiles offered to cook Derek dinner, he told him to cook his father dinner instead. “He’d appreciate it more.” Stiles snorted at the thought, but in all honesty he knew Derek was right.

So without further ado he put his shoes back on and headed home, throwing up a peace sign by way of salutation.

**Author's Note:**

> What'd you think? Kinda cute right?


End file.
